


The Professionals

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, Conflict, Confrontations, Friendship, Gen, Internal Conflict, Medical Professionals, Spies & Secret Agents, Tough-Love-Sherlock, post-vows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 09:06:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1852399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is an aftermath story. I am very fond of the confrontation/intervention scene at Baker Street after Mary's revealed as the shooter. Sherlock rises to new heights of strength and courage and personal commitment there, and his battle with John's desire to not-see what makes him uncomfortable is epic. Gorgeous writing, gorgeous acting, gorgeous resolution. That said, to me it seems clear that there's what one might think of as "a lot of work" still to be done to get John on the same page as Mary and Sherlock.</p><p>So, this is about some of that ongoing tough-love work, and conflict, and struggle. John loves his wife and his best friend--but he does't always understand them, and sometimes that lack of understanding trips him up. Especially as he has a temper. </p><p>Conflict, confrontation, some violence (limited, no injuries (well, maybe some bruises...)). Angry John. Tough Sherlock. Sober, worried Mary. Lots of love, but in very tough-love forms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Professionals

They were having “the discussion” again—the discussion John despised. Sherlock and Mary, chipper as London sparrows, debating all the possible shots Mary could have taken on that night in Magnussen’s office.

“Yeah, ok, you’re right: too much possible damage with a hip shot, and it wouldn’t have really incapacitated me without having hit something like the femoral artery. Would have bled out in seconds.”

“And I didn’t want to go for a lung-shot. Sucking chest wounds are too dicey.”

“Agreed. It was a hard call—you really needed me out for the count, and so many shots are either death shots or leave me conscious.”

“Still, it was dreadfully risky. I kept worrying it had been too close, and when John called to say you were in surgery and your heart kept stopping…” She gave a dramatic shudder. “Brrrrrrrr. Took a year off my life, it did, worrying about you, you big rat.”

Sherlock laughed. “Well, better a year off yours than decades off mine.”

“There is that. Back in a mo’, I’m-a get another beer. Want one?”

“Yeah. Sure. Why not?”

“John? You want one?”

His temper—always simmering in any case—flared, then. “What I _want_ is for my wife and my best friend to stop talking about the time she nearly murdered him. What I _want_ is for the two of you to quit acting like it’s some move in a video game. What I _want_ is for you to act like nearly killing someone _matters._ Not that I expect to get what I want around here,” he added, gesturing broadly to all the Baker Street flat. “I never have before.”

Mary’s eyes went hurt and wide, as they did when he raged. Sherlock’s went distant and flat, as he coldly deduced something—no doubt something John didn’t want to hear. John scowled. “Yeah. Ok. Fine. A beer. By all means, a beer. We can all down a couple pints, get pissed, and have a bit of a sing-song. Just what I wanted to do on our afternoon off from the baby.”

“John…” Sherlock’s voice took that growling tone that warned John to be cautious, to walk warily—the tone John had heard for the first time the night he’d learned about Mary’s past. The tone that suggested John was out of control, and Sherlock was watching…

“Don’t _‘John’_ me,” he snapped. “Why is it I get angry and you start sounding like I’m a child due for a scold? I. Am. Not. A. Child, Sherlock.”

“No,” Sherlock said, eyes still, body still, attention focused to a point, like a diamond drill. “You’re a grown man who refuses to look directly at the facts regarding his wife and his best friend.”

“Facts? That you’re a couple of reckless, headstrong fools with no sense of moral limits?”

“That’s one way of describing us, yes. You’re leaving out two vital details, though.”

“Oh, yeah, right. Because I’m just John Watson, professional idiot. Need a know-nothing? I’m your man.”

“You’re John Watson, professional soldier and doctor. It colors your perceptions, John. When you shoot, you shoot to kill. In all other instances you opt to save lives, the least risky way available. For a doctor and a soldier your logic is impeccable.”

John blinked, then scowled. “Great. Only there’s one huge ‘but’ attached, isn’t there?”

Mary, still standing in the door of the kitchen, said sadly, “John… it’s not about you being wrong.”

“No? Of course it’s about me being wrong. It’s always about me being wrong.”

“John, you’re missing what Sherlock’s trying to tell you…” Her eyes would have shamed him into better behavior had he been less angry. As it was they just spurred his fury—one more damned way everything was always his fault.

“Right. Because I always miss what Sherlock’s telling me. Except when he doesn’t bother telling me at all. The two of you—you’re alike as two peas in a pod. I still don’t know why you didn’t marry each other.”

“Because we’re alike as two peas in a pod,” Sherlock snapped, rising from his armchair and stalking over to the fireplace. He leaned back and crossed his arms, frowning at John. “And you’re not always wrong—you’re not wrong about Mary and me being alike. You’re just missing why that matters.”

John thought his temper had blown already…he’d been wrong. He realized that approximately five seconds after he launched himself at his best friend, hands reaching for his long, skinny throat. Approximately four seconds after he toppled them both to the ground. Approximately three seconds after he set his thumbs over Sherlock’s carotid artery.

Approximately two seconds after Sherlock moved in one strange and complicated way, and Mary, from behind, moved in another, and John Watson found himself on his back, pinned by his best friend and his wife.

Mary, sitting on his chest, had somehow pinned his arms beneath her knees. Her forearm pressed against his Adam’s apple. Sherlock, to one side, hovered, dangerous and dark and ready for action.

For the first time in their company, John Watson thought to be afraid of them, not for them.

“She could kill you, if she chose, John,” Sherlock said, in that same grim, determined, unwavering voice. “I doubt you would like to know all the ways she could kill you quickly and silently right now.”

John glowered, rage simmering, simmering, simmering—only common sense and his limited sense of self-preservation keeping him from trying to buck his wife off of him, prove he was the warrior he saw himself as being.

“I could have done the same,” Sherlock said. “Any time. These past years—any time I’ve been near you, I could have killed you. When I drugged you, I could have killed you. When you slept. When you were awake, When you fought me on my return. I could have killed you.”

“Thanks for rubbing it in.”

“If you don’t like it, love, please, don’t make him have to,” Mary said softly, eyes sad. “Don’t make _me_ have to.”

“’Have to’? Right. I so needed to be shown how useless I was, compared to you.”

“This is not about you, John,” Sherlock said. “It is about me and Mary. What does this tell you about me and Mary?”

“That you’re willing to play me for a fool? Trick me into thinking you actually might need me?”

“Wrong,” Sherlock sighed, and leaned over his knees, weary.

“Let me try, Sherlock,” Mary said. Without loosening her hold or drawing her arm from his throat, she said, “What are we, John? Me and Sherlock. Tell me, love. You’re a professional doctor and a professional soldier. What are we?”

“Assassin,:” he spat out, glaring at her. “You’re an assassin.”

“Almost,” Sherlock said. He crept near, and leaned over John, his blue eyes intense. “You’re an assassin, too. Or have you forgotten Jeff Hope? If you have, I have not. You are an assassin. So—how are you different from us?”

John scowled. Both the people he best loved in all the world looked down at him. Mary’s eyes were pale blue—winter-sky blue. Sherlock’s seemed almost teal green in the soft light of the flat. Both were sober and intense and focused.

“I don’t know. I don’t—“ He glowered. “Let me guess—you’re both ‘high-functioning sociopaths.;”

“You’re on the right path,” Mary said, softly. “Almost there. What are we, lover?”

“You’re professional killers.”

“Bingo,” Sherlock murmured.

“What?” John did thrash, then, to no great effect.

“Let him up, Mary,” Sherlock said, rising, and pacing back to his armchair. He settled himself in as Mary rose and moved to stand against the fireplace, at Sherlock’s right hand. John struggled up, dusting himself off, scowling at both of them.

“What?” he asked again. “What was that all about?”

“We are professionals,” Sherlock said. “Operatives. Killers. This is our work. John, as a doctor there are conversations you can’t have without disturbing most non-doctors. Blood and surgery and death and triage. As a soldier there are conversations you can’t have—battles and bleeding and killing and loss and maiming. There are conversations you have only with other professionals, who understand why you must be dispassionate, why you have no sentiment over certain things. Why you must wield a knife, or a gun. Outsiders, people who don’t share your world, or face your choices, will think you coarse and unfeeling, numbed to human compassion, ignorant of the implications of your actions. They would be wrong.”

John stood, staring at them, letting the second slip past. His Mary—slim, small, dainty Mary. He had never yet seen her prepared for action, with a gun in her hand and a knife at her hip. Sherlock, whose only kill in John’s experience had been made with John’s own gun….

“You don’t own a gun, Sherlock,” John said.

“No. I don’t,” Sherlock replied. Then, to John’s horror and dismay, his face darkened with a muddled blend of anger and humiliation, and he looked away. “Mycroft rescinded my carry license when he pulled me out of field work. He only let me carry again during the hunt for Moriarty’s people.” His mouth crimped, sour and defeated. “I’m not considered a safe risk any more. I was…too remorseless.”

“A high-functioning sociopath,” John murmured.

Sherlock didn’t acknowledge John’s comment, but his eyes met Mary’s. Something passed between the two—his friend, his wife—that was personal and intimate without being sexual. A sympathy and an understanding.

“You’re both professionals,” he said, then, softly, trying to take it in. Trying to process what he’d known for years about Sherlock, but avoided ever processing. What he’d known about Mary for months. “She was…CIA?”

She glanced at him, and nodded, curtly.

John sighed, and looked soberly at Sherlock. “MI6?”

“Before. Now I mainly consult with MI5 as an analyst. No double-O work, these days. Except under exceptional circumstances.”

“Moriarty being an exceptional circumstance.”

Sherlock cocked his head, and raised a brow. “Well, he was far from commonplace.”

“And you and Mary—when you talk together, it’s….what? Shop talk?”

Their eyes met his, calm and steady.

He sighed. “Not heartless. Not—indifferent.”

“A bit heartless,” Sherlock said. “A bit indifferent. Caring isn’t an advantage, John. No more than caring is an advantage when you slice a y-incision into a patient's abdomen. If you want to be good, you have to set the sympathy aside. The big difference is—we kill. More like a soldier than a doctor, I’m afraid.” He crooked a forlorn grin at John. “We don’t get to save lives except by killing killers. Or stopping them without having to kill them. But in the end, if forced—we kill. We think in terms of gambles and risks, compromises, best outcomes.”

“Surgical shots to save lives.”

“Yes.”

“You do know that to a doctor that’s just—insanity. You don’t shoot people to save them. Certainly not abdominal shots to the liver.”

“Better than abdominal shots to the heart, or lungs, or stomach, or intestines,” Mary said.

He met her eyes, and frowned. “Better not to shoot him at all.”

“To you, as a doctor, maybe. Would the soldier say the same thing, if trapped?”

John turned back to Sherlock. “I…don’t know.”

 “We are assassins, John. You’re an amateur, we’re professionals. At some point you have to accept that. Or never accept it, and pay the price.” He waited, watching John’s face.

John looked at them both. Tall and short, dark and fair, man and woman. His best beloved and his best friend. His deadly loves. He sighed. “Price would be giving you up, wouldn’t it?”

“No. The price would be living with us, and always knowing underneath that you were loving a lie,” Mary said.

“What are we?” Sherlock asked.

Their eyes studied him, calm, chill, patient. The eyes of killers.

He sighed, and said, softly, “You are my dear assassins.”

If he felt a little closer to them having said it, he also felt a little farther away, as one more illusion died.


End file.
